50. Dream Lover

Derek receives a mysterious package
filled with the shards of an ancient urn which once housed a spirit
that was freed by a now dying Legacy member, named Samuel. His fiancée,
Jessica - so beautiful, powerful and seductive that no man can resist
her, not even Derek. After a passionate night together, Derek returns
to Angel Island, weakened by his experience. Alex and Kristin discover
Jessica's true identity but can Derek resist her, even with that knowledge?

Valery
aka "Merano" (1998)"Librarians
are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don't
ever piss one off." - Spider Robinson,
"The Callahan Touch"

It is night in a desert ruin.
Archaeologist Samuel Kellig is calling for someone named
Hassan. He gives the young man a box and tells him to run
to the village and send it right away. After Hassan has
gone a beautiful woman, Jessica Lancy, comes out of the
ruins, and demands to know if Samuel is leaving her.
"I have to," he tells her, very agitated.
"You can't," she says, and compels him by some
strange force to come to her. "No," he denies,
"you're not Jessica, you're something else. I know
what you're doing to me now, I know where you came
from." He says he'll stop her. When she insists he
tell her where "it" is, he resists, but she
backs him into the tent, saying with complete certainty
that he will tell her everything. She rips open his shirt
and caresses him, and we hear the sounds of an animal
growling. He knows she's feeding off of him, he says; yet
he still wants it, she purrs, no matter what happens to
him. Frightened, he protests that she needs him to live.
"Not any longer," she tells him, and demands to
know where the urn is, her eyes turning yellow and
slitted. Samuel resists, begging for his life.

Outside, Hassan has delayed leaving to see what is
happening. The box he carries is addressed to Derek Rayne
on Angel Island. He witnesses, as shadows on the tent
wall, the woman become a giant snake and devouring
Samuel.

At a park overlooking the ocean, Derek is reading
Samuel's last letter to him, telling him about falling in
love with his assistant Jessica Lancy. He looks forward
to bringing her to meet Derek, when he will see why she
reminds him of Byron's poem, which Derek recites:
"She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless
climes..." Unexpectedly, a woman finishes reciting
the poem, then introduces herself as Jessica, Samuel's
fiancee. She had come looking for him, knowing how both
he and Samuel loved this park. His death was such a
shock, she says, and she reassures him that there was
absolutely nothing he or anyone could have done. The
propane tanks had exploded, and animals must have gotten
to his body. Derek offers comfort, giving her Samuel's
letter, and she tells him how kind he is, "so much
like Samuel," and kisses his cheek. Derek seems a
bit uncomfortable and changes the subject. He finds that
Jessica is staying at Samuel's loft to take care of his
things. After she refuses his offered lift, he makes
certain she has his number. If there's anything she
needs, he says, call him. After he leaves, she crumples
up the letter. "I will," she says, and there is
subtle menace in her voice.

Over coffee at home, Derek tells Alex and Kristin
about his friendship with Samuel, of nearly 20 years.
They're looking at a picture of the two men, taken in
Tibet. They're in the mountains, unshaven, arms around
each other's shoulders grinning at the camera.
"Looks like Day 9 of the Hostage Crisis,"
Kristin remarks with a smile. "Close," Derek
admits; they'd just escaped from a Chinese cell where
they'd been held for over a week. By hang glider, as Alex
recalls the rumor. Derek smiles, saying Samuel must have
put that out about. The truth was that their guards got
drunk and forgot to lock the cell door. Alex asks how
Samuel's fiancee is managing, and Derek says as well as
she can under the circumstances. "Jessica Lancy is a
very unusual woman...Quite different than I
imagined." "Not the usual dusty and
boring' archaeologist?" Kristin queries. Derek says
that isn't quite what he meant; for the 3 years she'd
been Samuel's assistant he had barely ever mentioned her,
and then he suddenly woke up two months before and
realized he loved her, proposing on the spot. Derek is
very puzzled.

Samuel's package has been delivered, and the three
discover it contains a shattered Minoan artifact. There
is no note, but the address was definitely in Samuel's
writing, and it came from a village in Turkey. Kristin
wonders what a Minoan artifact was doing in Turkey. The
writing on the pottery is cuneiform; Derek says Samuel
understood the language as well as he, so why send it to
him? It must be important, and he tells Kristin and Alex
he must know what it says.

Rachel arrives back from a conference, to discover
books and papers spread all over the library. She's
perturbed, since she'd had an important project on the
table and it's been moved. Kristin introduces herself,
apologizes for having to move Rachel's papers (she needed
the space and didn't know when Rachel would be back).
Rachel is angered to realize Kristin has read her papers,
and obviously believes her responsible for losing an
envelope containing her report to Derek, even though
Kristin denies having seen it.

In the Control Room, Alex and Derek are having
difficulty determining the purpose of the broken pottery.
They'll need to reconstruct it before they can read the
cuneiform inscription; Alex draws this task. Derek has a
sudden flash of a vision of a naked woman in bed, hears
the animal-like growling, and is quite disturbed. He
suggests the vessel may have been used in some fertility
rite and turns abruptly to leave. When Alex asks where he
is going, he counters with, "I wasn't aware I had to
account for my whereabouts." Kristin passes him
coming in and wonders to Alex if he's all right. Alex
thinks Samuel's death is affecting him more than he's
letting on. Kristin tells Alex about her meeting with
Rachel, and describes it as "a little bit like
docking the Hindenburg." A woman of unshakable
convictions, she observes; Alex says that when Rachel
believes something she doesn't hold back and Kristin will
get used to it. Kristin says has the distinct feeling
than Rachel doesn't like her, and when Alex suggests they
need to find something in common remarks, "Well, we
are both mammals..."

At Samuel's loft, Derek asks Jessica if she knows
anything about the shattered Minoan artifact, and she
claims she doesn't. Maybe if she sees it... Derek says
there's not much to see, tells her it will be difficult
to reconstruct but if Samuel felt it important enough to
send it to him he thought she might have known why. She
admits she had trouble thinking about those last few
days. Derek embraces her to comfort her and gets flashes
of the two of them entangled together in bed. He's
profoundly disturbed and tries to leave. She seeks to
delay him but he insists. She then gives him Samuel's
field box, a small wooden inlay box he always took with
him. Derek says he claimed it had magical powers. She
tells him she couldn't bring herself to open it and asks
if he'll go through and catalog the contents for her
"and Samuel." He agrees. When she presses him
with "...and you will come back?" he,
obviously reluctant but almost compelled, answers simply,
"Yes."

In bed that night Derek's sleep is disturbed by the
sound of Jessica calling his name. We see her in bed at
Samuel's loft, as she whispers Derek's name, running her
hand sensuously along her naked thigh which shimmers like
snake skin. In Derek's room, Samuel's field box is open
on the nightstand, and from the piece of pottery shaped
like a serpent's eye a light blazes forth. Derek is
writhing in a bed with Jessica, protesting that this is
wrong, but she denies that and insists he kiss her. He
repeats "No...no..." over and over, his face
showing his torment and compulsion as he makes love to
her. Finally he is flung out of the "dream"
with a loud cry of "NO!" and sits up in his own
bed. Leaning across to get a drink of water from the cup
on his nightstand, we see red scratches from a woman's
fingernails down his back.

The next morning Rachel is telling Derek about the
conference, and admits to a setback as she can't find the
report she needs him to read. "In the
envelope?" he asks. "I've already read it while
you were at the conference." He apologizes for
having caused her any problems, but he confesses to
having a lot on his mind and tells her about Samuel's
death. She is sympathetic, offering to help. He asks why
someone would dream about a situation they believed was
wrong, and she suggests that sometimes people can work
things out in dreams they can't in waking life.
"Like a taboo," he says, and she agrees. When
she asks him to go on, he tells her he has to work it out
himself.

Alex and Kristin are working on the urn, Alex putting
it back together and Kristin working on the translation.
The language is all very confusing but seems to indicate
something about feeding inor ondreams, and of
fertility or procreation, unusually direct for this
culture. There is a strange scale pattern on the inside
of the urn that they cannot figure out.

When Rachel and Kristin "encounter" each
other in the library, Rachel attempts to apologize for
her actions earlier, but drops some books before she can
get started. When Kristin tries to help she insists on
getting them herself, and Kristin remarks that Nick said
she was independent. When asked what else Nick
had said, she hears that Nick considers her a good ally
to have in a fight and she always acts with the best
intentions. When Rachel skeptically warns Kristin not to
believe everything Nick says since he tends to
over-exaggerate, Kristin agrees. "He called me
impulsive," she says, to which Rachel replies that
that's like the pot calling the kettle black. "I bet
he said I overreact," which, she admits, is not
always wrong, and she explains about the missing envelope
and apologizes for jumping to conclusions. "No harm
done," Kristin assures her.

In his office, Derek is examining the contents of
Samuel's field box. When he picks up the pottery snake
eye he hears rattling and has a vision of Jessica in a
negligee, looking up at him with yellow snake eyes. He
hears someone playing the Moonlight Sonata and goes
downstairs to investigate. He finds Rachel at the piano,
wearing a low-cut red velvet gown, looking sexy and
dreamy. "Rachel? What are you doing?" he asks.
She reaches out, caresses his cheek and leans close as if
to kiss him. "You know," she whispers.
"NoI don't know. I don't understand." She
pulls away, and when he puts his hand over hers on the
keys she turns into Jessica. "Don't you?" she
asks. Standing, she cups his face in her hands. "You
want me. Submit to me." Just as it seems he shall
give in, he grasps her hands and pulls away. Now she's
Kristin. "Haven't you always known?" She kisses
him, and he again gets a flash of Jessica writhing naked
on top of him and pulls back once more to see Jessica
before him. "Give yourself to me," she says.
"You brought me by wanting me the same way that I
want you." It's wrong, he protests, tormented.
Samuel's gone, she argues. All Derek has to do is destroy
something for her. Unwilling yet unable to stop himself,
he kisses her. He pulls back from her again as she urges
him to stay with her. But he hears Rachel shouting his
name, and suddenly he finds himself standing in his
office, Rachel before him calling him.

Rachel tells him he was shouting Samuel's name over
and over, and she couldn't get his attention. His office
is in a shambles. "We have to talk," she says,
and he tells her not now. "Yes, now," she
insists. "I need time," he tells her, then
moderating his tone, says "Please?" She agrees,
but says he needs help. After she leaves he begins to
straighten his office, but when he discovers his notepad
with the name Jessica written over and over, he starts
hearing the name repeated in his head. In desperation, he
throws his monitor across the room.

In the Control Room, Alex has made good progress on
reconstructing the urn. When Kristin admires her work and
jokes that she missed her calling, Alex offers to trade
places. Kristin, amused, refuses. "I'm having way to
much fun in my crash course in a dead language," she
says. They puzzle over the snake scale patterns on the
inside. Perhaps they had put a reptile inside, but there
is no organic residue inside. And if it had been just a
dead snake, Kristin wonders, why would they write a
warning on the outside of the urn?

Derek is finally speaking to Rachel, but it is very
difficult for him. She suggests he may feel guilty about
Samuel's death, but that isn't what's wrong he says. It
is strange dreams he is having about Jessica
"Intense, strange...highly erotic." It isn't
just attraction, but some kind of electricity between
them. He's never felt this way about anyone, and has no
control over it. Rachel suggests that he's always had too
much control, and someone has finally gotten past his
armor. She assures him he's neither "repressed or
obsessed" but tells him his grief can be affecting
how he feels.

At Jessica's that afternoon, he tries to tell her how
he feels, that from the moment he saw her he began to
fall in love with her. He tried to fight it, because he
felt it was wrong. She confesses that she felt the same.
"I know you loved Samuel," she says. "I
loved him too. But he's gone, and we're alive. I'm
alive." She asks, "Do you want me?"
"Yes," he says, almost despairingly. "Oh,
yes." She leads him to her bed, and she takes off
her blouse and skirt and moves on top of him...

Kristin has found a scrap of writing on a piece of the
paper used as packing material in the crate the urn was
shipped in. She and Alex frantically search for the rest
of the fragment and find the word "Catticus," a
buried city in Turkey, the city of the dead. So Samuel
sent a note after allbut what was he trying to tell
them?

Derek and Jessica are totally involved in their love
making, Jessica still controlling it. As they (how shall
I phrase this delicately?) achieve satisfaction, a
strange light shimmers over Derek's chest, and the scale
pattern appears on Jessica's back.

It is night time, and Jessica and Derek lie together
in her bed. She tells him he has an intensity in him
"like the coals at the center of a fire." Derek
is strangely weak, and concerned over how long he's been
there. She wants him to stay with her, but his cell phone
rings. It is Alex to tell him they've almost finished the
urn, but there's something about the inscription he needs
to know and he should come see it. Jessica thinks he'd
better go back and find out; she offers to take him
because he doesn't look very well...

Kristin believes the inscription is an incantation,
protection against whatever was in the urn, feeding on
people in their dreams. But they don't have the complete
incantation, and they haven't figured out what Samuel
meant by "Catticus." A pity Samuel never saw
the urn whole, Kristin remarks, which causes Alex to
speculate that Samuel himself might have broken it,
releasing something terrible on the world, which is why
he sent it to Derek.

Jessica brings Derek home, and Alex meets them in the
foyer. He looks very ill, and Alex tries to take him
upstairs as Jessica leaves, after asking Alex to call her
to let her know how Derek is. Alex tells Derek on the
stairs about the incantation and thinking that Samuel
himself broke the urn and released an evil spirit. Even
though Alex urges him to rest Derek demands to see the
urn *now*. Alex agrees to bring it to his room.

She was right, he tells her after examining the
inscription. Something that feeds on the souls of men was
imprisoned there and the only way of catching it again is
to read the incantation, calling it by name. But that
piece is missing. Alex again tries to get him to rest,
but he's insistent about continuing. He's puzzling over
the name "Catticus" as a worried Alex leaves
him. Suddenly he figures out that it doesn't refer to the
city, but the man, as he takes the works of Catticus from
his bookshelf.

Jessica, meanwhile, has not left. She's in the
house...

Rachel arrives, looking for Derek, and Kristin tells
her he's ill and Jessica brought him back home...

Jessica is climbing the stairs...

Rachel is worried about Derek, who hasn't been like
himself since Samuel's accident. Kristin tells her it may
not have been an accident, and tells her about the urn
and inscription. She's also discovered that Samuel, who
used to faithfully file weekly Legacy reports for years,
suddenly stopped shortly after becoming engaged to
Jessica. This causes Rachel to remark in bewilderment
that the woman certainly seems to have an unusual effect
on men.

Derek discovers in Catticus what the evil force is
calledLamia. Jessica comes into Derek's room and
reaches him before he notices she's there. "It
certainly took you long enough to invite me into this
house," she says. Backhanding Derek across the room,
she approaches the urn. Derek cries out as she reaches
for it, and tries to lure her to him. "It's me you
want. You want my power. Finish what you started."
"I will," she vows, and flings the urn against
the fireplace where it shatters once again.

Alex tells Rachel that Derek is ill after having
apparently spent the evening with Jessica. Rachel
marvels, "what is it about this woman?" and the
effect she has first on Samuel and then Derek. Kristin
has her picture up on the screen, a mousy-looking woman
with bad hair and glasses. "That's not Jessica
Lancy," Alex declares. "The woman I met was
magnetic, sensuous." "Not the usual boring,
dusty archaeologist," Kristin remarks. When Rachel
says they need to talk to Jessica, Alex says she's left
and Rachel must have passed her on the way out. When
Rachel declares she didn't pass anyone they all rush out,
alarmed.

In his room, the lamia is again seducing Derek. He
tries to speak the incantation, "Begone, evil one.
Begone from the earth..." but she hushes him and
brings him under her spell again. "Do you think you
can resist someone as ancient as me? I have been feeding
off your kind since time began." Derek tries but is
unable to break free of her, as she compels him to kiss
her. Just then, Rachel, Kristin and Alex rush in, Kristin
crying out to Derek to get away, she killed Samuel.
Rachel attempts to strike the lamia as Alex yells to
Derek to open the field box. The distractions were enough
to allow him to break free and Derek finishes the
incantation. The lamia spirit screeches as its snakelike
form is compelled from Jessica's body and into the box.

Handing the closed box carefully to Rachel, Derek goes
to the sprawled form of Jessica Lancy, once more herself.
She is shaken, weak. Looking at him in puzzlement, she
quavers, "Do I know you?" "No," he
answers gently, "we've never met." Cradling the
bewildered woman comfortingly in his arms as Kristin,
Alex and Rachel look on in concern, we hear Derek's
journal entry:

"Passion...it has the power to elevate
us, drive us to our greatest achievements. Yet
without love to guide it passion can be the
destroyer, consuming everything in its path. We are
defined not by the strength of our passions, but the
depth of our love."